


Of Fever and Chills

by RunawayBean



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fever, Hallucinations, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pining, Sickfic, Unrequited Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22788913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayBean/pseuds/RunawayBean
Summary: Martin’s concern permeates through the room like some sort of wave, taking hold of Jon’s mind before he’d even properly processed the words Martin had said. “Are you alright?”Jon hums and fiddles with a button on the tape recorder, free hand coming up to scratch at the honey-comb scars along his jaw absentmindedly. He doesn’t say a word, just prays to a deity he doesn’t believe in that Martin takes his seemingly distracted hum as answer enough.After a moment or two, perhaps about thirty two seconds, the office is silent and Jon believes he’s gotten away with it.———Regarding Jonathan Sims' run in with a horrid fever and Martin Blackwood's signing on to be his caretaker of his own volition.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 34
Kudos: 454





	Of Fever and Chills

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello!
> 
> Welcome to my first dive into fanfictions of the Magnus Archives variety. I honest to goodness adore this podcast more than words can describe and I highly highly _highly_ recommend you listen to it. I haven't even finished season 4 yet, but I still wanted to write something so I could- well, 'spread the word,' so to speak.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy today's fic! It's a sickfic of sorts where Jon gets something of a nasty fever and hallucinates vividly (not fun). I won't give much else away, but there are some rather soft and gay undertones.
> 
> Go forth and read, friends, and I really hope you like it.
> 
> ~Nero/Cy

“End recording.”

The wood of the desk is cool to the touch when Jon presses his forehead against it, so stark against his feverish skin that it drags a faint hiss from his lips at the contact. Despite this, he’s too hot to truly wish to sit up straight again, no thanks to the few sips of tea he’d had earlier. But now, his tea had long since gone cold as it had been sitting, undisturbed for…

However long it had been. After this long of getting lost in statement after statement, Jon has seemingly lost the ability of judging time through something as simple as intuition. It’s annoying, certainly, but hardly something to mourn over for longer than a second or two. 

And, once he has drawn himself out of his mild, momentary, depressive haze, Jon sees that he’s still in his office which comes as no true surprise. The walls are the same, the shelves are the same, his desk is the same, and he’s sure that his desk drawers are as terribly inorganized in spite of his best efforts just the same as they always are. He’d tried, in vain, to organize them by usage and colour, but he always seemed to shove things wherever he could reach easiest when he was working and, well, spending half an hour trying to put everything back where it goes sounds insufferably boring.

The knock at his office door is a gunshot and he nearly falls out of his chair, saved only by his urgent wish to at least keep some of the dignity he walked into the Institute with this morning. He steadies himself once more and clears his throat, being reminded once more of how dry it is, and he calls a dull ‘come in.’

It’s hardly a surprise when Martin opens the door and pokes his head in, glasses askew and hair a wild mess. Jon barely processes what Martin says, his exhaustion having given rise to a supposed fog that clouds any sort of rational judgement he may or may not have. Frustratingly, he has to look up at Martin and blink like he’s just had the lights turned on after sitting in the dark for hours before Martin repeats himself.

“I’ve made some tea,” predictable, “Would you like some?”

Jon’s words are so slurred at first that even he hasn’t a clue what he’d meant to say. So he clears his throat, closes his eyes, and tries again.

“No, thank you.”

Martin’s concern permeates through the room like some sort of wave, taking hold of Jon’s mind before he’d even properly processed the words Martin had said. “Are you alright?”

Jon hums and fiddles with a button on the tape recorder, free hand coming up to scratch at the honey-comb scars along his jaw absentmindedly. He doesn’t say a word, just prays to a deity he doesn’t believe in that Martin takes his seemingly distracted hum as answer enough.

After a moment or two, perhaps about thirty two seconds, the office is silent and Jon believes he’s gotten away with it.

But alas, Martin is far too empathetic and kind for that, and he’s got one hand on Jon’s forehead while the other rests on his shoulder before Jon could even begin to process it. Had it been earlier in the day, he’d have snapped at Martin, but he can’t exactly bring himself to force his lips to move. His throat can hardly make sound, his tongue is too dry to move, and his teeth feel like they’re frozen shut. Should he attempt to speak, he’d have failed. He knew that without even trying.

“Jon,”

_What?_

“I think you have a fever.”

Jon sighs and rolls his eyes, batting away Martin’s hands and attempting to dismiss his concern. When he stands, though, his knees turn to liquid and he collapses. Martin yelps.

The fog follows his mind even when his head thuds against something warm and slightly soft, as something else warm envelopes him in what can only be counted as a hug. It’s odd, that Jon is letting himself fall into this so willingly, but something about the fog filling the spaces in his skull makes him just melt. His bones feel warm, as if they’re melting like the rest of him, and alarm seeps into the rational part of his brain as tension floods out of his shoulders.

It’s only when Martin speaks that Jon realizes where he is. “Jon? Are you really alright? You uh…”

“I what?”

Aha, his voice hasn’t completely abandoned him. “I what, Martin?”

“You’re letting me hug you.” Martin says, not making any move to step away.

It takes Jon about twelve seconds to realize what Martin has said and, when his silent count reaches twenty, he is standing on his own two feet again, hands on Martin’s shoulders to steady himself. He peels his eyes open, blinking blearily at the light in his office, and he begins attempting to convince his joints that they are not, in fact, made of honey. Perhaps they’re honeycomb, or the outsides of a bees’ nest, something, _anything_ more solid than honey.

Martin’s hands are on his waist now, if he’s properly processing anything at this point, and they’re oddly warm. But Jon pointedly pays this no mind and continues his argument with his joints in an attempt to slow their supposed liquefaction.

For the third time, Martin asks him if he’s alright.

This time when Jon tries to answer, the only words he manages to produce sounds something like ‘anesthesia,’ which doesn’t make much sense.

The sigh that Martin presses into the air of his office is long and tired, almost a ghost in the dim light, and Jon feels something in his lower back tighten at the sound. It hadn’t been a particularly offensive noise by any means, but it certainly does… _something_ to him in a way that he decides he does not like. It’s not every day that something as simple as a discontented sigh makes him seize up and freak out, if this could be called ‘freaking out’ in any sense, so he takes a step back to observe it like it’s a particularly interesting-

Stone.

Not bug.

Stone.

Somehow, as he’s observing whatever his mind had done just now, Martin pulls another reaction out of him he hadn’t expected. It’s drawn out by Martin shifting him in his arms and pressing the back of his fingers to Jon’s head and-

Oh.

“Jon,” Martin’s voice anchors him, “You’re _burning up,”_

_(“I lied.”_

_Burning pain, so much pain, make it stop, make it STOP-)_

And yes, Jon decides, that sounds about right. He’d thought his office was too warm but seems it had just been him and him alone.

But Martin isn’t finished talking: “Why are you at work?”

Now that, that is something of a stupid question.

Asking the head Archivist, Jonathan Sims, self proclaimed workaholic and overall overachiever when it comes to long hours and unhealthy numbers of all-nighters why he was at _work?_ A stupid question indeed, and it almost makes Jon laugh. And he would have, he thinks, if his throat didn’t feel like someone had used loctite and glued razors up and down his throat.

The memory of the handshake falls from his mind like papier mache, and Martin falls into its place. The concern in his eyes makes them bright, sparkling even, and Jon suddenly (and stupidly) wishes he had a map or a compass or anything at all because his head had begun to spin.

Spinning, spinning, spin-

Michael.

Jon thrashes in Martin’s hold and stands on weak, fever-addled limbs, and he slurs something about the Stranger and fractals, but-

“Jon,”

Martin doesn’t sound like he’s leaving room for Jon to wriggle out of this one, even in that one word.

“You need. To _rest.”_

It almost seems like Martin is the one out of the two of them who has the Beholding wrapped around his little finger, because Jon feels very Compelled to listen to what he’d just said. His head swims viciously, Martin’s concerned features melting and molding together until Jon can no longer keep track of where his eyes are or where his mouth isn’t, and he shuts his eyes with a soft noise that sounds a little scared. He’s scared.

Not of Martin-

 _Never of Martin,_ says a voice in his head-

But of the way that Martin’s features are suddenly so painfully unfamiliar. And it is a little painful, the way his eyes cross as Martin’s migrate across his face, but now his vision is bathed in the blessed darkness cast by his eyelids and he doesn’t have to look at the face he doesn’t know.

Martin’s voice, though, is something Jon does know. In fact, it would be rather hard for him to forget about Martin’s voice, especially if he’s asking something about whether Jon wanted tea or not, and now doesn’t seem much different. Martin’s voice is drenched and dripping with that same liquid sweetness that it always is, and Jon can now recognize it as genuine concern. He’d been stupid enough to have thought it fake, before.

He knows better now, marginally, and when Martin starts haphazardly walking him down the corridor of the archive, Jon goes along willingly enough. He could hardly do anything to stop Martin, weak and blind as he is, and so he surrenders to his fate. Little to nothing will make him self conscious about this, lest Melanie comes in and starts shrieking about how Jon doesn’t let anyone actually hold him except for Martin. She wouldn’t be _wrong,_ of course, but Jon doubts anything else could properly humiliate him in this situation.

Basira wouldn’t have said anything, after all, and Daisy would have just given them a Look that Jon wouldn’t want to understand.

But, thankfully, no one intercepts them as Martin walks him down the Archive corridors, and Jon comes upon a room that he can only guess was where Martin slept when he stayed here. The bed hadn’t been made since it had last been used, and Jon’s swimming vision certainly doesn’t do it any good either. 

He hardly notices when he face-plants into the mattress.

Martin yelps in surprise and does his best to- well, Jon doubts that he’s trying to actually _catch_ him, but perhaps he’s trying to… cushion his fall, or something like that. Or, well, he could be simply trying to make his fall more comfortable. But of course that all goes out the window when Jon lands as awkwardly as seemingly possible and grunts rather inelegantly as his shoulder jams.

Despite the way his collarbone and shoulder are complaining and the fact that his face is pressed into the sheets far too hard, Jon doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to move ever again, wants to take route and melt into the archives, like some sort of tree or… something…

 _Gods, I must be losing it._ Jon groans into the sheets.

He can almost _hear_ Martin’s eye roll when it happens and, when Martin actually speaks, Jon may as well have been able to taste the salt. “Jon. When was the last time you slept?”

Now that. That is not something Jon is going to admit willingly, so he simply shifts and hides his face in a conveniently located pillow. Martin isn’t going to drag that answer out of him, not until he devotes himself to the Eye and Compels him to. And, of course, Martin won’t ever do _that,_ Jon knows this for a fact. 

“I’m going to guess it wasn’t yesterday, then.” Martin says cheerfully.

Next thing Jon knows, there’s a comforter being draped over him. Warmth seeps into his bones and Jon feels his joints turn to jelly, bones turning to honey, and there’s hardly anything anyone can do to stop it, much less his own force of will. 

The hum of satisfaction that escapes him is something rather… calm. Soothed, almost, and when Martin starts combing his hand through Jon’s hair, he feels like he could just melt into a fully liquid form and drift away, never to be seen solidly again. Of course, the human body (or not-so-human body, in Jon’s case) isn’t able to fully melt into liquid, and so Jon’s bones stay stubbornly intact despite his nerves’ best efforts.

“Sleep,”

_(No. I won’t-)_

He’s out like a snuffed candle.

————————————

There’s something cold and damp on his forehead when he wakes up, and Jon finds that he hardly has the mental capacity to wonder what in any gods’ name it is.

At some point, he’d been turned from his left side onto his back, and the pillow had been properly positioned beneath his head, cradling him in a way that Jon admittedly hadn’t experienced in a long time. It’s a stupid thing to feel embarrassed over, but shame colours his cheeks further and-

Wait.

_Further?_

The heat in his cheeks is horrendously painful, almost, and Jon groans softly under his breath, voice breaking after not even half a second. The desert that is his throat hurts even more, like he’d swallowed shards of glass instead of sand, and Jon feels something prick behind his eyelids. It startles him a little, because… well, he can’t remember the last time he properly cried. 

That makes him sound emotionally constipated and again, that observation would hardly be far off from the truth. He acknowledges his own emotions, certainly, but he doesn’t show very many as openly as he probably should, which has earned him a few choice nicknames in the past that he will forever shun.

The door creaks as it opens and there are a set of soft, purposefully quiet footsteps. For a moment, Jon feels panic begin to rise in his lungs, threatening to drown him once more, but-

“Jon?”

The panic dies so quickly, he nearly gets whiplash, and relief crashes over him like a wave on his back, cold and sharp and _welcome._

Martin’s name dies on his tongue before he can utter a sound and he coughs raggedly, pain lancing through his lungs and throat. He curls onto his side with the force of his coughs, and he feels a warm, big hand touch his back, rubbing smooth, slow circles there. Jon feels it, though it’s coming through the fabric of his jumper and the thin sheet of sweat on his skin, but he feels it all the same. Warm and soothing and welcome, so very welcome.

“So I take it you’re awake then.” Martin whispers as Jon’s coughs begin to die. Even as they die, though, the circles on his back never do. Never. They only go on, warm and soft and firm and around and around and around around around around a-

“Think you can sit up?”

That sounds like one of the single most terrible ideas Jon has ever heard, possibly in his entire life. The pounding in his head feels like he’s being used as the inside of a clock, skull colliding with the metal walls of the bell, _bong- bong- bong-_

“Hey,” Martin’s hand is on his face now, the backs of his fingers oddly cool on Jon’s flushed cheek. “Stay with me.”

No idea what that means. Jon isn’t dying-

“Hey,” Martin says again, “How are-”

Jon’s hearing goes fuzzy and Martin’s words turn to mush, nothing in particular making it through the fog in his mind, pressing in from all sides. And this must be what Martin means, Jon supposes. He keeps spacing out, vanishing off this plane and falling to the next. 

It’s hardly his fault, mind you, but his brain is-

It’s-

What is-

_“Jon.”_

He gasps and it tears horribly through his throat, shifting the glass and tearing into his skin, and Jon’s eyes fly open. He grabs desperately, one hand rocketing out from under the covers and _grabbing_ hold of what he can only assume is Martin’s forearm. Vertigo hits him so fast his vision goes blurry. It hurts, it hurts _so much,_ but-

An anchor.

He has an _anchor_ now.

_(I thought it was the tapes, but…)_

“Are you okay?” Martin asks, and this time Jon hears him and can watch as his mouth forms the words. Slowly, his vision comes into sharper focus. Slowly. Slowly.

Then, finally, he swallows, tongue too big for his mouth, teeth too small. And he nods.

Martin’s left cheek dimples with his smile and Jon feels something tighten in his chest at that, but he writes it off as whatever is going on with his head. Speaking of which-

“You’ve got a nasty fever.” Martin sounds perfectly sympathetic, “And you probably didn’t pay enough attention to the beginning symptoms to ward it off.”

Sounds about right.

After swallowing again and trying to get some moisture back in his mouth. Then, voice croaky, he whispers, “Don’t-”

“Stop.” Martin says immediately, “You’re not getting rid of me while you can’t even move. So lie there and let me get you un-sick.”

“Un-sick.” Jon repeats in a rasp, “Really?”

“Really. Now go back to sleep.” 

Jon shakes his head, eyes already closing. “How long… how long was I…”

“About ten hours.” Martin chirps, “And you needed it. Now sleep or no statements until you’re better.”

Jon doesn’t get to protest.

_(Later, he’ll grumble and groan about getting Martin sick and having to take care of him because he absolutely refuses to owe anyone any favours, but-_

_Well, it’s certainly not the worst fate._

_It’s not good for his heart, though. That’s going to be a problem.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the end of the fic!
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, drop a kudos and maybe a comment telling me what you think! If you want to yell at/with me, you can find me on [twitter,](https://www.twitter.com/RunawayBean_hq) [tumblr,](https://runawaybean.tumblr.com) and my [writing blog.](https://runawaybean.wordpress.com) And, of course, if you have any questions, then feel free to check out my [curiouscat.](https://curiouscat.me/RunawayBean)
> 
> Thank you again for reading, and I'll see you next time!
> 
> Nero/Cy~


End file.
